It had not rained in several weeks, and the young rice
lay wilted in the cracked mud of the paddies. The village
farmers had regretfully diverted what water remained to keep
the millet alive; millet needed far less water than rice
did. Rice meant good eating and sake, but millet meant
survival and was less attractive to bandits.

A boy ran along the path between the paddies, not
sparing a glance for the dying rice. Puffs of dust rose
from his footfalls to be whisked away by the hot wind. He
paused on the rise just outside the village, looked back
over his shoulder nervously, then ran down the road leading
to the gate in the crude fence around the cluster of houses.
He stopped in the shade of the sapling just outside the gate
and panted, bent over with his hands on his knees; it
wouldn't do to be too out of breath to speak.

The boy finally straightened, climbed nimbly over the
gate, and ran along the dirt street to the largest house in
the village. "Headman! Fire! There's fire in the woods!"

Men emerged from their houses, where they'd retired to
escape the worst of the day's heat. "Jiro! You were
supposed to go for firewood, not set the woods on fire!" one
called reproachfully, then looked annoyed when none of the
others laughed at his jest.

The headman, a stocky man with a strong face, came out
of his house, blinking in the harsh sunlight. He eyed the
boy and sighed heavily. "Jiro. Not again...."

Jiro stamped his foot and looked exasperated. "No,
really! You can see the smoke from the road! Come on, I'll
show you!" He started off along the street, paused, and
looked over his shoulder to see if the men were following
him. The headman heaved another sigh and strode after the
boy. The other men fell in behind him.

Jiro ran to the top of the rise and turned. "There!
See?" he said triumphantly, pointing north at a banner of
smoke rising from the forested hills a couple of miles away.
The men spread out across the road and stared, shading their
eyes with their hands and muttering.

"Hm." The headman turned to face the wind, then swung
back to eye the smoke. "Wind's blowing it away from the
village, at least. We're safe, unless the wind changes."
He paused. "Is anyone else out there?"

The men shifted uncomfortably. Finally one said,
"Headman... didn't Shukumaru and Suzuko go that way today?"
The headman nodded once without looking away from the smoke.
The grim look on his face didn't change.

"He was carrying his spear," one of the men remarked,
trying to lighten the tension, "but I don't think pig was
what he was aiming to poke." He grinned and made a lewd
gesture.

"Eee, if you had a young, pretty wife like that,
Takezo," one of the others said, "you'd take 'er to the
woods on a hot day like this too!" The coarse laughter died
when the headman didn't join in.

"I'm sure they're all right, Headman," a third man
offered. "Shukumaru's tough, and that girl's no fool, even
if she is a bit odd. They'll be back in good time." The
others nodded and agreed, but they were watching the headman
carefully.

"In good time..." the headman muttered. "Yes, of
course." He turned and started back down the road toward
the village. It wasn't his way to show how concerned he was
for his long-lost daughter and the boy he'd adopted and
raised.

~~~~~

Suzuko awoke with a start. The cool, shady glade where
they'd collapsed into the ferns, tugging at each other's
clothing, was now filled with smoke and the crackling roar
of a very large fire. She caught a glimpse of leaping
orange light through the gray curtain as she shook the young
man snoring beside her. "Shukumaru!"

"Huh? Wuzzat? Damn!" Shukumaru collected himself
quickly, as he always did, and rolled to his feet. He
hastily secured his yukata and grabbed his spear, looking
around at the burning forest.

Suzuko tucked her kimono up so she could run, then
stared at the approaching flames. Fire. Why is it always
fire! The old, familiar panic threatened to overwhelm her,
until Shukumaru grabbed her hand and pulled.

"This way!" They scrambled through the ferns away from
the blaze, coughing. "Damn, should have gone to the
waterfall instead... the wind's come up, we gotta get 'round
it!" Shukumaru stopped suddenly. "Oh... shit."

"What?"

Shukumaru gestured at more flames in their path. "It's
ahead of us too." He looked up. Burning debris flew by
overhead, dropping to start more fires all around them.
"Dammit, one idiot starts a fire and now WE'RE yakitori!"
He turned suddenly at Suzuko's terrified whimper. "Sorry.
But I can't get us outa this one."

Suzuko steadied at that. "Maybe I can."

Shukumaru's smoke-reddened eyes studied her. They
hadn't talked about her power much, even though he'd been
carried from one time to another by it on three occasions;
he was almost as uncomfortable with it as she was.
"Where'll we go?"

"I don't know." That was the honest truth; she had no
control over where when the fire would take them. "But
anywhere's better than here...."

Shukumaru laughed shortly. "I guess. So now what?"

Suzuko coughed and glanced up at the fire spreading in
the canopy above them. The air was getting as hot as an
oven, and she could feel her skin scorching and her hair
beginning to curl. "Hold me tight. Whatever happens, don't
let me go. Hold on to your spear, too; we might need it."
Shukumaru obeyed. Suzuko looked up at him. "Shukumaru...
promise you'll protect me forever?"

"I promise." Shukumaru's strong arms tightened.
Suzuko locked her hands behind her husband's back and felt
the cord of the bell that hung from one wrist. It wasn't
the bell that had come from the Sengoku Jidai with her when
she was a little girl; she'd lost that one when she let go
of her schoolbag while falling back through time after the
gas explosion, the same way she'd let go of Shuhei, the
neighbor's kid. Shuhei had fallen ten years past her and
grown up to become Shukumaru, but she'd never seen her
namesake bell again.

Suzuko squeezed her eyes shut and wondered what time
they'd arrive in. She thought of the future where she'd
grown up, and suddenly wondered if she really wanted to go
back there

A burning tree fell in a forest, but there was no one
there to hear it. It made the sound of a small brass bell
ringing.

~~~~~

Suzuko sat up in a deluge of cold rain and looked
around. Released from her embrace, Shukumaru slumped and
rolled over, got a faceful of rain, and woke up very
suddenly. "Good one, Suzu!" he said after he'd stopped
spluttering. "Man, that feels great!" He wiped his face,
delighting in the cold water on his scorched skin, then
shivered as his thin yukata soaked through. "So where are
we?"

"I don't know," Suzuko said slowly. They were on a
heap of rubble that appeared to be a demolished house: it
was mostly roof tiles, beams, and shredded shoji screens.
She could see other houses, still standing, through the
rain. "We're a long way from home, though."

Shukumaru stood up carefully, leaning on his spear, and
reached down to give her a hand up. "Let's get out of the
rain."

Suzuko smiled. "I thought you liked this rain?" she
teased.

"Yeah, when I was burnin'. Now I'm cold." Shukumaru
started down, picking his way carefully over the rubble.
Suzuko followed. The rubble stopped abruptly at a street,
but Shukumaru didn't. He walked boldly out into the street
and turned, then beckoned to Suzuko. "Over here!"

She followed him past a damaged house to a shop that
seemed to be intact and joined him under the shelter of its
eaves. "It looks like Tokyo," she said, wringing out her
hair, "but not the one I grew up in. No cars. The street's
wrong." She turned to examine the papers posted outside the
shop, and her knees buckled under her.

Shukumaru dropped his spear and caught her. "Hey,
what's wrong?"

"The year is Showa 19. It's 1944," Suzuko said weakly.

"What's that mean?" Shukumaru asked, frowning.

"The Great East Asian War is still going on. Oh, this
is terrible!"

Shukumaru shrugged. "One war's pretty much the same as
another, ain't it?" Suzuko stared at him, remembering that
Shukumaru had grown up in a country torn by war; to him,
"peace" was something local and temporary that you enjoyed
while it lasted.

"You there!" Shukumaru and Suzuko turned to see that
they were being addressed by a man in a wide hat, wearing a
uniform under his rain-cape. He walked closer, eyeing them
suspiciously. "What's with the spear?" He examined
Shukumaru. "Why aren't you in the military?"

Suzuko's tongue unfroze. "He's too young to be in the
military," she began.

The policeman spared her a contemptuous glance. "He
doesn't look too young to me, lady. And he sure doesn't
look unfit for duty, either." He looked back at Shukumaru.
"Come with me," he ordered peremptorily, reaching under his
cape to unsnap the flap on his holster.

Shukumaru didn't remember clearly what a gun was, but
the man's tone and Suzuko's frightened gasp were enough for
him. The policeman had had the usual judo and karate
training; Shukumaru was untrained, but had been fighting
bloody battles since he was old enough to hold a weapon. It
was no contest. Shukumaru's knee sank into the policeman's
gut while the man was still realizing that the couple wasn't
going to come along peacefully, and Shukumaru's fist to the
neck laid him out unconscious.

"Come on, Suzu!" Shukumaru said urgently, seizing her
hand and retrieving his spear.

Suzuko resisted, looking down at the policeman in
horror. "You hit a policeman! They'll arrest you!"

Shukumaru snorted. "They gotta catch me first. Look,
a policeman's like a lord's retainer, right? Those guys
were always comin' around, wanting men to fight their stupid
wars for 'em." He grinned. "I know how to stay outa
military service. Run and hide until they get tired of
looking." He tugged on Suzuko's hand again, and this time
she stumbled after him.

"I hate to get rid of it," Shukumaru said after a half-
hour's dodge through unfamilar neighborhoods that had Suzuko
thoroughly lost, "but I guess they don't like guys to carry
spears here." He weighed the spear in his hand sadly, then
made to toss it away.

Suzuko managed to get her breath back. "No, wait. We
can sell it." She smiled suddenly. "It's an antique now."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain later." She took the spear. "We need to
find a, a pawnshop or something. I'll carry the spear; that
won't look as suspicious." She regarded him doubtfully. "You
look too... healthy. Try to walk, er, hunched over and
bowlegged, or something. Like Takezo."

"Heh. Yeah, I can do that." They set off through the
rain, with Shukumaru in front doing his impersonation of a
middle-aged farmer. Suzuko followed him three paces back
with the spear over her shoulder, doing her impersonation of
a submissive wife and trying not to laugh.

~~~~~

Suzuko followed Shukumaru out of the pawnshop, putting
on her newly-acquired wide, conical straw hat. The money
was tucked carefully away in her kimono; the amount had
seemed surprisingly small until she realized that the value
of a yen had changed quite a lot in forty years. It was
only enough to make the difference between being penniless
and being poor, though.

Shukumaru paused under the eaves and donned his own
hat. "Now we can get something to eat. I'm hungry."

"Well, I'm cold and wet. We need to find a place to
live first," Suzuko said, staring out into the rain.

"What? How long are we gonna stay here?"

"I don't know. Maybe the rest of our lives." I hope.

"No way! We gotta get back home!" Shukumaru burst out.
He seized Suzuko by the shoulders. "You got us back the
last time!"

Suzuko looked up into his eyes, ignoring the pain of
his grip. "I knew the gas explosion would take us back
because we'd already gone that way once. But that won't
happen, er, again until forty years from now."

"But.... Well, we can make a fire!"

Suzuko tilted her head at the rain without looking
away. "In this?"

"Fine! We'll wait for the rain to stop and THEN make a
fire! Or find a fire! Or something!"

Shukumaru stopped and turned, and she saw the surprised
expression under the hat. He came back. "I wasn't leaving.
I was just... oh, hell."

Suzuko reached out and took his arm. "You promised..."

"...to protect you forever." He sighed. "I dunno how
to DO that here, though, dammit!" The frustration and worry
in his voice eased Suzuko's own anxiety.

"Let's find a place to stay. Then we can find
something to eat. Then we can figure that out. All right?"

"...All right."

~~~~~

Finding a room turned out to be surprisingly easy;
people had fled the city faster than the bombs falling from
the sky had destroyed its residences, and it was a renter's
market. Food, on the other hand, was expensive. Suzuko
tried to be as thrifty as she could, but years as a
schoolgirl with an allowance and a year as a 16th-century
farm wife had not exactly prepared her for survival in
wartime Tokyo.

Still, when darkness fell they had a roof over their
heads and bowls of noodle soup inside them. One thing they
did not have was dry clothes. Suzuko wrung out their soaked
clothing, then hung it up to dry above the coals in the
hibachi. Shivering, she crawled into bed with Shukumaru,
glad she'd thought to make him stay there while she tended
their clothes. He was dry and warm, and so was the futon
and quilt; just the thing for a badly chilled girl to cuddle
up to on a cold, rainy night.

"YAAAAAH!"

"You said you'd protect me, Shu," Suzuko said in her
cutest voice. "Protect me from the cold...."

"Gods, your feet are freezing! Your, your everything
is freezing! Here." He shifted a little, bravely exposing
more of his surface area to her. Suzuko sighed contentedly
and snuggled, feeling the chill finally receding.

"So," Shukumaru said when they'd reached the same
temperature. "You sounded like you know something about
this place...."

Suzuko sighed; she'd been wrenched abruptly from
pleasant thoughts. "Well, the whole country is at war, but
not with itself this time. The enemies are the Americans,
the British, the Chinese, and the Russians, mostly."

"The Chinese, I know. I dunno the others. The names
sound kinda familiar, though."

"Americans live in the land across the Eastern Ocean.
The Russians come from past the Chinese, and the British
from past that."

"Huh. So, are we winning?"

Suzuko bit her lip. "No. We're going to lose, in less
than a year."

"Damn. And after that? We get invaded and they take
all our land and our rice, and some of our women, right?"

Suzuko bit her lip again, for a different reason. "Not
exactly. War's a bit different now. We get occupied, but
they don't take much, and in about ten years Japan is pretty
much rebuilt."

"Weird. Why're they fighting us if they don't want our
land, rice, and women?"

Suzuko tried to remember her history classes. Her
teachers hadn't talked about the war much, and her parents
her foster parents hadn't either. "I don't know."

Shukumaru sighed noisily. "It's probably one of those
stupid-type wars, like when two lords get greedy and waste
ten villages fighting over one village." He paused. "The
whole country, you said... what about the Emperor?"

"I don't... well, in my time, the Emperor is still the
Emperor, but he's not a god any more"

"Don't joke about that, Suzu." Shukumaru's voice was
very serious. He shifted restlessly. "Man, if this is the
Emperor's war, I'm gonna have to fight in it after all."

Cold fear gripped Suzuko. "No! You can't! Listen to
me"

"What, you think I'm a coward?!"

"No! I know you're not! Listen! This war is a
horrible waste. Japan's going to lose. You can't change
that. All you can do is get yourself KILLED!" She breathed
hard. "Shu, they're not fighting this war with spears and
swords and arrows. They're using horrible weapons that kill
hundreds of men at a time, without ever seeing their
enemies, and you don't know how to fight with those. And in
the end... they'll kill whole cities, a hundred thousand
civilians dead in a flash. There's no honor in that. No
heroes. You don't remember, because you were too little
when you were in the future, but that's how it was. Will
be."

Shu was silent for a time. "Still...."

"Shu, this isn't the Emperor's war anyway. The people
now think it is, but it's really a group of powerful men who
are running the war in the Emperor's name. He's not YOUR
emperor anyway. You're a subject of the emperor back then.
No one here even knows you exist; you're not on any
records." Suzuko crossed mental fingers and hoped Shu
wouldn't ask who was emperor when he was born.

"Man, this time stuff gives me a headache," Shu said
ruefully after a moment.

Suzuko relaxed. "Me too. That's why I don't want to
go through the fire unless I have to."

"All right, already. So what's the rest of the war
like, here?"

Suzuko shrugged. "I don't know. Airplanes drop bombs
on the city, I guess, but they don't destroy it all, and
they don't kill all the people... not like some other
places. They're aiming at the factories anyway, so it
shouldn't be too bad. The war ends in about eight months,
and after that things should get better." She considered.
"We need jobs, though. We can't live here without money,
the way we could in the village. What can we do?"

"Hell, you know. I fight, I farm, and I scavenge."

"You're not fighting," Suzuko said firmly. "I don't
know if we can find land to farm, but you might work for a
farmer. Scavenging... well, it's a little different now,
because you can't keep what you find, but they'll be needing
men to clean up the bombed buildings, I suppose."

"Fine. I'll go out in the morning and talk to people,
see what's what. If we're gonna live here, I'm gonna want
some buddies, anyway. How about you?"

"I'll see about getting the other things we need for a
home, I suppose. We can't eat other peoples' cooking, it's
too expensive."

"Sounds like a plan."

~~~~~

It was. Shukumaru turned out to have a talent for
making friends and getting along in this century as well,
and his contacts told him when men were needed here to load
trucks, or there to clean up collapsed buildings, or over
there to harvest radishes. He left their room early each
day, and sometimes didn't come home until after dark, but he
nearly always brought something back: a little money, an
uncracked cup, a few radishes.

Suzuko slowly scraped together the rudiments of a
household: changes of clothes, pots and bowls, a cheap
kitchen knife and a salvaged cutting board, a kettle that
didn't leak too much. She eked out a little money or food
by cooking, cleaning, sewing, or baby-tending for those with
more money and less skill than herself, but it was hard
after being the wife of a prosperous farmer. She secretly
counted the weeks until the war would end, concentrated on
keeping her husband clean and well-fed, and waited for life
to improve.

Suzuko didn't have the same gift for making friends
that the outgoing Shukumaru did, though; most of her
neighbors knew her only as a shy, pretty girl who moved
among them, silent except for the ringing of the small bell
she always wore.

Air-raid sirens wailed throughout the city when the
American planes went over, so high that they were barely
visible as silvery specks that sometimes spun out white
contrails behind them, but the bombings were more of an
annoyance than a danger; most of the bombs fell miles away
by the docks and the factories. Stray bombs occasionally
fell nearby, but most of the residents were barely
concerned, and many didn't even go to the bomb shelters.
For Shukumaru and Suzuko, a bomb falling in their part of
the city usually just meant that Shukumaru wouldn't have
quite so far to go to get work the next day.

Then a bomb hit the nearby public baths.

Suzuko stood in the crowd of people on the edge of the
rubble-strewn lot, anxiously watching as Shukumaru and a
dozen other men clambered over the unstable heaps searching
for survivors, clad only in their loincloths despite the
cool, overcast day. Luckily, there hadn't been many people
in the baths; two had been found dead, and three wounded,
but the owner was still missing.

The onlookers craned their necks as one of the men
waved and shouted; the others converged on his location.
After a few minutes of frantic activity, one of the men
stood up, looked at the crowd, and shook his head sadly. A
low moan went through the crowd, punctuated by a wail of
grief from Mrs. Honda. Shukumaru was one of the men who
finally carried the body out of the rubble and laid it on
the street next to the others; some of the men wouldn't
touch dead bodies, but Shukumaru had no such qualms.

He said something inaudible to Mrs. Honda, then came
over to Suzuko, scrubbing at his hands. "Damn. He was a
nice old guy."

"So what about the baths, Shu-kun?" one of the old men
in the crowd asked.

Shukumaru shook his head. "I dunno. If Honda-san were
still alive, I'd be thinkin' about getting some of the guys
together and rebuilding, but...." He shook his head again.

The crowd muttered in dismay. The baths had been an
important social center for the neighborhood, as well as an
essential service among so many rented rooms and apartments
that had only toilets, but no baths. The people began to
shuffle away in ones and twos.

Shukumaru turned to Suzuko. "C'mon, let's go home.
I've had it for the day." He wiped at the blood on his
forearms and wondered where he could go to clean it off.

~~~~~

The loss of the baths was like an ill omen, and things
began to get worse after that. For some unknown reason,
there weren't any more bombings, and less work for Shukumaru
as a result. More and more often, he came home empty-handed
and grim-faced. Suzuko was having trouble finding food at
prices she could afford; the grocers were raising prices on
what food they were able to obtain, and the money she'd
saved bought less and less each day. It was February,
nearing the end of an awful winter.

Mr. Goto looked up, hearing the tinkle of the bell as
Suzuko came into his small store. "Morning, okusan," he
said cheerfully. "Turnips again?"

Suzuko smiled ruefully. "Yes, I'm afraid so." Turnips
were cheap and nutritious, but not very appetizing. Still,
with a little soy sauce....

Goto looked around, checking that no one else was in
his store, and reached under the counter. "How about this,
then?" He placed an oblong object on the counter and
beamed.

Suzuko stared at the block. "Dried bonito...." Her
mind raced. With shavings from that, a bit of cloth, and
some kelp, she could make dashi, a delicious fish broth.
With dashi, soy sauce, and the results of her daily search
for food, she could make dozens of tasty dishes. With
dashi, she could make even turnips taste good! The block
would last for well over a month of meals, perhaps even two!
Shukumaru would love

She dragged herself back to reality. "It's lovely,
Goto-san, but I couldn't possibly afford it," she said
regretfully.

Goto smiled. "Sure you can. I'll hang out the
'Closed' sign, we'll slip in the back and have some fun for
a little while, and you can have this."

Goto nodded in agreement. "Of course you do. That's
why you want to take this home to him." He nudged the block
of dried fish. Suzuko looked at the block, then looked at
Goto. Without conscious thought, her neck took over and
started shaking her head back and forth, and didn't stop.

"No?" Goto shrugged. "Ah, well, no hard feelings. If
you won't, there's others who will. Not all as young and
pretty as you, but hey, don't you want some turnips?"

Suzuko stopped a hundred yards away, leaned against a
wall, and waited for her heart to stop pounding. She'd been
nearly raped, nearly killed, and nearly burned alive on
several occasions, and these damn 1940s pig-men leered at
her all the time and she was used to that, but this scared
her more than all the others... because Goto had gotten to
her. He'd known exactly what would tempt her the notion
of making something nice for her man (and for herself, a
small voice insisted) and he'd used it mercilessly, and
she'd been tempted, and she couldn't stop trembling. She
wondered what she'd have done if the block had been a little
bigger, or Goto hadn't been quite so repulsive. If he'd
been a nice man, a tall, strong, young, handsome man like
Shukumaru... if he'd been the kind of man who would kiss her
and talk softly to her first, and who would stay awake
afterwards, unlike Shukumaru....

"Get real," she muttered to herself. Men like that
didn't need to barter blocks of dried fish. They could have
all the women they wanted, especially in this city, where
half the men were off to war and the other half were too
old, too young, or crippled. The women, on the other hand,
would give a lot for a tall, young, strong, handsome man
like... oh, god, like Shukumaru. It wouldn't matter that he
didn't have a romantic bone in his body and always fell
asleep just when a girl wanted to be cuddled.

Suzuko pushed off the wall and headed for home, wishing
desperately for Shukumaru to be there and knowing he
wouldn't be.

~~~~~

"Suzu! Hey, what a day I had!" Shukumaru burst into
their room, grinning, and stopped short. Suzuko, kneeling
in the corner slumped against the wall, raised her head
slowly and looked at him. He could see she'd been crying.
A blind man could see she'd been crying. "What's the
matter?"

"Nothing."

Shukumaru cocked his head. "Uh... right. Anyway,
this'll cheer you up!" He sat down, produced an oblong
object from his yukata and held it out. "Here!"

Suzuko stared at it. Oh no. He didn't. "What's
that?"

"A block of dried bonito," Shukumaru said happily,
ignoring the way Suzuko's face had suddenly frozen.

"Where did you get it?" Suzuko was quite proud of the
level tone of her voice.

"A woman gave it to me," Shukumaru said.

Oh no. He did. "Why?"

"I got lucky yaaah!" Shukumaru fell over backwards,
surprised by his wife's sudden lunge at him from a kneeling
position, and fended her nails away from his face. "Ow!
Dammit, what the hell's the matter with you?!" Shukumaru
twisted suddenly, caught her wrists, and pinned her down
with a carefully applied knee. "Have you gone CRAZY while I
wasn't lookin'?!"

Suzuko was twisting in his grip, leaking tears. "You,
you screwed another woman to get that bonito, didn't you!"

Shukumaru's face registered blank incomprehension, then
shock. "You ARE crazy. Why would I do that?"

Suzuko sagged. "You... you didn't?"

Shukumaru loosened his grip a little. "No!"

"Well, what, then?"

"Me an' Jubei, we were called to this place that they
hadn't propped up good enough after it got bent a little by
a bomb, and it fell over, right? So we're pokin' though it,
like we do, and I found this hand, see? It had blood on it,
but I pulled on it, and it didn't come loose, and it was
warm, so I called Jubei over. We dug this guy out, and he
was alive. Man, I love diggin' out live ones," he said with
satisfaction. "So anyway, his wife was real happy, and she
gave me this. She gave Jubei one, too."

"Oh." I'm an idiot.

"Can I let go now? I mean, is it safe?"

"Yes."

Shukumaru let go, sat back, and helped Suzuko up to a
sitting position. His face still reflected honest
bafflement. "Suzu... why would you think that I would do
that? You know you're the only girl for me."

Suzuko looked up at that, and saw in Shukumaru's eyes
everything she could hope to see there, and more. "Oh,
Shu!"

~~~~~

The air-raid sirens howled to life in the predawn
darkness. Shukumaru and Suzuko sat up in unison and felt
for each other. "Shu? They've never come at night before."

"I know." Shukumaru's voice was worried.

"Why are they coming at night, Shu?" Suzuko's voice
was drowsy and frightened.

"I don't know. Wake up, dammit. Get some clothes on
and get ready to run for it. I don't like this. I'm going
to go outside and take a look." Suzuko heard Shukumaru
stumbling around the tiny room in the dark, swearing as he
tripped over the hibachi. By the time she'd found a kimono
and put it on, he'd dressed and slipped out. She found her
bell and looped its cord over her wrist, taking comfort in
its familiar ringing.

As she left their room and felt her way down the
stairs, she became aware of noises: the clamor of people
shouting, running footsteps in the street, the wail of the
sirens, and over it all, the rising thunder of hundreds of
aircraft engines. She burst out the front door of their
tenement and stopped, stunned.

Lines of fire were marching across the darkened city.
The planes that had dropped destruction from so high in the
sky that they could barely be seen were now dropping fire
from lower, much lower. The light of the great orange
chrysanthemums of flame they sowed behind them reflected off
their shiny bellies and slim, straight wings. They swept
across the city, and the city burned. People exclaimed in
tones of awe, and wonder, and terror.

Suzuko shook off her paralysis. Fire. "Shukumaru.
Shukumaru!" She had to find him, had to find him before the
fire came and took her away "SHUKUMARU!"

One of the planes droned right over her head, perhaps
five thousand feet up, and even she knew what that meant.
The line of fire-flowers bloomed behind it, one every five
seconds, each one closer, each one hiding the last

"SUZUKO!" She heard him, and saw him running up the
street towards her, and she ran to meet him. The fire came,
perhaps five hundred yards away, dazzling her and throwing
Shukumaru's face into sharp shadow. The next one would be
right HERE, right NOW

Shukumaru's outstretched hand slapped into hers as the
flame washed over them, and they fell. The ringing of her
brass bell was the last sound she heard.

~~~~~

Suzuko fell forward, her knees slammed into earth, and
her hands hit a moment later. It was night, and the stars
shone brightly; there was no fire anywhere. A frog chirped
happily not far away, and another answered. She rested
there on all fours for a minute, as glad to be still alive
as the frogs were. "Shu?" Frogs don't have husbands.
"Shukumaru?" Frogs don't travel in time. "SHUKUMARU!"

A frog doesn't pop into the middle of nowhere in the
middle of the night with empty hands where her husband was
just a minute ago. A frog doesn't feel a terrible wail of
grief and loss and despair welling up in her throat because
if he were just lost, she could start searching and have a
hope of maybe finding him someday, but if he were lost in
time, she could search for ever and ever and ever and she
would never, never find him....

"SHUKUMARUUUUUUU!"

A frog doesn't cry.

The frogs were silent for a long, long time.

~~~~~

The rays of the sun striking her face woke Suzuko up.
She groaned and sat up, stiff from a night on the ground,
then looked around. She was on the border of a field;
millet waved to one side, and there was a cart-path to the
other. Her hands were crusted with dirt, and there were
smears of dirt on her kimono. She looked at the ground and
saw marks, as though something had been clawing at the
earth. She looked at her hands, and it all came back to
her.

Not something. Me. Oh, Shukumaru.... Let's see. The
sun is rising there, and our room was here, and the place
where the gas tanks were... um... will be, was THAT way from
it. The place where my foster parents found me was where
the village was, and that's THAT way, so the village is...
might be... might have been... oh, hell.

Suzuko stood up slowly and started walking along the
path, not because she wanted to, but because it seemed
marginally better than laying herself down to die right
there. Her bell jingled softly as she walked.

~~~~~

Matsuo laid his hoe down and sat in the welcome shade
of the tree he'd left his lunch under. He untied the cloth
wrapped around it and peered in to see what his wife had
made for him. Millet cakes. Pickle. Oh, well, perhaps if
the harvest was good this year, there'd be rice

He became aware of a small approaching sound, like a
little bell ringing, and looked up. His jaw dropped and his
lunch fell in his lap.

"Excuse me." The slim young woman looked like she'd
been very pretty before she'd died and then clawed her way
up out of her grave. Now she just looked dead, and dirty.
Matsuo looked down to see if she had feet. She had feet.
Great, she isn't a ghost. She must be something worse....

"Yes?" Matsuo croaked. "Please don't kill me!"

Something resembling life sparked in the monster's
tormented dark eyes. "I won't," it said. "Please, can you
spare some millet cakes? And maybe a pickle?"

Matsuo sagged in relief. "Yes! Yes! Take the whole
thing, and welcome to it!" He watched the polite monster
smile gratefully and devour his lunch. Gods, what sharp
white teeth it has, and how hungry it is, and how sad it
looks.

"I don't suppose you know anyone named Shukumaru?" the
monster asked, wiping its lips delicately on the cloth.

Matsuo swallowed. He knew he wasn't brave enough to
fight a monster, and he didn't think he was clever enough to
outwit one, the way the heroes did in the stories his mother
had told him when he was a child. Shukumaru was both brave
and clever, though, and could fight or outwit a monster that
a cowardly fool had set on his trail, and might even be kind
enough to forgive the fool afterward. "Uh... yeah, sure.
Shukumaru lives in the village over that way." He waved
vaguely, then watched in astonishment as the monster's eyes
lit up, transforming it from a monster into a girl who
looked strangely familiar.

"SHUKUMARU!" The girl started running. A moment later
she was back. "Thanks for lunch!" She disappeared in a
cloud of dust and a wild jingling.

"Wait!" Matsuo called, but she was already out of
earshot. "Suzuko?" he whispered to himself. "But...." His
brow furrowed. "Uh oh." He got up, picked up his hoe and
empty lunch-cloth, and jogged after her, grinning. This
promised to be very amusing.

~~~~~

Suzuko ran down the rise to the gate in the fence
around the village, passing the tree that grew beside it,
and slipped in through the gate. Please, let it be him, let
him be here.... She didn't notice that people were standing
up and staring as she sped past, and she certainly wasn't
looking back to see them gathering behind her and following.
She ran past house after house, little changes barely
registering, and then saw her house. Their house.
"SHUKUMARU!"

She tore open the door and stumbled in, her sun-dazzled
eyes seeking desperately in the gloom inside the house for
the man she'd lost less than a day and over three hundred
years ago, the man who was standing there and beginning to
move towards her. "Suzuko? What?!"

"Shukumaru! I found you!" Her tears were washing the
dirt from her face as she cast herself into his arms and
kissed him joyfully. He smelled the same, his lips tasted
the same, his... his chest was a little thicker, and his
hair was a little thinner. She pushed back and looked up at
him. It was Shukumaru, but older. Not much older, perhaps
twenty-five, and still handsome. Close enough. He'd do
just fine. "Oh, Shu, you waited for me!"

"Suzu, what...."

"Papa? Who's this?"

The word rattled around inside Suzuko's suddenly empty
mind. Papa? Papa? She looked down. Her gaze was returned
by a small boy. Papa. Of course he's Shukumaru's son, he
looks a lot like Shuhei.... She looked back at Shukumaru,
who was still looking like he'd just been hit with a pole.
"You BASTARD! You DIDN'T wait for me!"

"What?! I did! Suzu"

"Who is she?! Fumi?! Mieko! She's always been after
you! Who?!" The crowd jammed in the doorway murmured to
each other, smiling. This was something you didn't see
every day.

"Listen"

"I'll rip her hair out! I'll" Suzuko's gaze finally
took in the woman standing behind Shukumaru, the woman with
the shocked expression on her... her....

Welcome blackness swept over Suzuko's eyes and mind.

~~~~~

"Are you feeling better now?"

Suzuko opened her eyes. She was inside, in the house
she'd helped Shukumaru build, on a futon, with afternoon
light leaking in past the closed shutters and a lamp
illuminating the woman who was gently dabbing at her face
with a wet cloth. The voice was almost familiar. The
face....

"You're... me," Suzuko said flatly.

The other woman smiled. "Sort of. I was you. You
will be me. Something like that."

"Where's Shukumaru?"

"I sent him away. I sent them all away, the silly
idiots. Honestly, I can't imagine what they were thinking.
No, we need some time alone, you and I."

"What... what happened?"

The other woman her other self, but perhaps twenty-five
years old, about the same age as Shukumaru lost her
smile. "The same thing that happened the first time I...
you... we went through the gas explosion. We didn't have a
good enough grip on him, and we lost him, and he went past
us. Only about seven years, this time, though."

"Is Father...?"

"Oh, he's still alive. He's quite well, too. Shu
landed only about five months after the forest fire, so it
hasn't been all that long."

"Then you...?"

"About seven months after that. Shu did wait for...
for me."

"Then I...?"

"Yes."

Suzuko shook her head violently. "I don't want to. I
won't. I won't go through the fire again. Not after what
happened the last time."

The other woman frowned sympathetically at her. "I
know. I didn't want to either." She looked as though she
were thinking, or perhaps trying to remember. "We'll talk
about it later. Now you need to rest." She watched Suzuko,
as though waiting for something.

"Um... what should I call you?" Suzuko asked.

The other Suzuko looked relieved. "Well, you know my
name, but I'll admit it could be a little confusing.
Shukumaru-no-okusan, perhaps? No? Well, call me Suzu,
then, and I'll call you Suzuko, since you're younger than I
am."

"All right." Suddenly rest sounded like a very good
idea to Suzuko. "Shukumaru... I need him here. I need to
know he's not lost. Please...."

Suzu nodded. "Yes, of course. I remember feeling that
way. I remember that, at least, quite clearly. He'll be
here, I promise. I'll watch over him for you." She rose
quietly and left the room. Suzuko wanted to stay awake, to
wait until Shukumaru came back, but sleep came over her
while she was waiting.

~~~~~

Suppertime was quite bizarre for Suzuko, with the boy
staring at her curiously, Shukumaru's puzzled eyes darting
back and forth between Suzu and Suzuko, and neighbors
dropping by on all manner of contrived pretexts to see the
best show in the village since it had burned to the ground.
Suzu smiled through it all, behaving as though everything
were perfectly normal, and tending to a daughter perhaps
three years old.

Suzuko sampled her stew; the taste was familiar, but
the intervening years had evidently made Suzu into a better
cook than she was. It wasn't surprising, really. She kept
watching Shukumaru, and eventually the urge to throw herself
on him and hold on tight settled down to a warm, comfortable
feeling at just being in the same room with him... slightly
disturbed by the uncomfortable feeling of being in the same
room with herself.

"Suzuko..." the boy said doubtfully. "Mama's name is
Suzuko, too, but I'm not supposed ta call Mama that."

"Well, people can have the same name, can't they? You
can call me Suzuko, and you can call her Mama." Just don't
call me Oneesan, that'll cause lots of problems when you
figure out I'm married to your Papa... too. Oh, dear.

The boy nodded. "Sure! I'm Shuhei."

"Shuhei?" Suzuko glanced at Suzu and Shukumaru. Both
were watching the boy with parental pride.

Suzuko smiled and twiddled her fingers at the toddler.
"Hi, Ryoko." Ryoko eyed her silently.

"She's a little shy yet," Shukumaru said. "She'll get
over it." He reached across and stroked the child's cheek.
"She's as pretty as her mother, though." He was looking at
Suzuko when he said it, and Suzu and Suzuko exchanged a
glance laden with about six different emotions.

~~~~~

Suzuko was feeling almost back to normal the next
morning; a night's sleep had helped, of course, but it was a
tremendous relief to be out of wartime Tokyo and back in the
village she thought of as home, and a bigger one to know
that Shukumaru wasn't lost in time after all. She sat on
the stack of wood outside the door and let the sun warm her.
She waved at Matsuo as the young man went by carrying his
hoe, and giggled when he jumped a foot sideways and hurried
away. He still wasn't quite convinced that she wasn't some
sort of revenant or foxwife.

"Suzuko!" Shuhei ran up and climbed onto the woodpile
to sit beside her, and Suzuko had a sudden attack of not-
quite-deja-vu.

"Good morning, Shu-kun. What are you up to?"

"Oh, nothin'." Shuhei swatted at the ground with his
stick. "Just playin'. How 'bout you?"

"Well, sure." Shuhei said it as though it were the
most obvious thing in the world. "She's... She's Mama."

"What about your papa?"

Shuhei swelled. "He's the bestest papa in the whole
world!"

Suzuko smiled to herself. "Why's that?"

"Well, when the bad men came to burn down our house, he
fought them!" Shuhei said excitedly. "Mama hid with Ryoko,
but I watched through the window. Papa had a spear, and he
stuck it in a bad man, and he fell off his horse! An' he
had a sword, and he swung it, and the bad man's head fell
right off! Swish! Splat! There was blood everywhere!"
Shuhei waved his stick. "Splat!" he repeated. "I'm gonna
grow up big and strong, and I'm gonna fight just like Papa."

Shuhei looked uncomfortable and rubbed his rump
unconsciously. "Yeah... I suppose. I mean, it was just a
little bowl, and I didn't mean ta break it." Suzuko
laughed, and Shuhei looked indignant. "Hey!"

"Sorry, Shu-kun," Suzuko said soberly, but her eyes
were still twinkling.

"Mama laughed like that when I told her that, too,"
Shuhei grumbled. He studied her. "You're an awful lot like
Mama. Where'd you come from? Are you her sister?"

When, not where; and no.... "Not exactly, but that's
pretty close. It's... complicated." And getting more
complicated all the time.

Suzuko watched him go. A good kid, she thought. One
hand strayed to her belly. My kid, sort of. Maybe.
Someday. But only if I go through the fire again.... She
shook her head hard and slumped back against the house, her
good mood consumed by the fire burning at the back of her
mind.

~~~~~

Shukumaru came out of the house a little later,
carrying a spear. "Hey, Suzu... uh, Suzuko. Want to go for
a walk?"

Suzuko's heart leapt. A walk was just what she needed,
especially since they wouldn't spend all their time walking.
"Sure!"

The roads were still about the same, the trails were
about the same, and Suzuko kept telling herself she was the
same... but Shukumaru was different. He smiled more, and
blustered less; he'd matured, in the six or seven years that
lay between them, and she... hadn't. It doesn't matter,
Suzuko thought. He's still Shukumaru. This is the man I
married, this is the man I love, and in a little while he'll
be the man I share my body with.

The turnoff to the waterfall was the same, the
waterfall hadn't changed a bit, and the spot they always
came to was still there. Shukumaru laid his spear aside and
looked at Suzuko. She smiled, flowed up against him, and
raised her face to be kissed. He complied eagerly. Suzuko
felt her kimono being loosened. His hand slid inside, the
hand of a farmer and warrior, calloused and familar. She
jerked a little. Wow. He's never done THAT before... at
least, not that well! Did he learn that from... from her?

"Shukumaru. Suzuko."

They tore themselves apart hastily and turned to see
Suzu, standing a few yards away with a very complex
expression on her face. Disapproval, jealousy, envy,
resignation, pity, love, hope, fear fear?

"Suzu, you TOLD me to do this!" Shukumaru remonstrated.

"I told you to take Suzuko for a walk," Suzu said with a wry
smile. "I knew you'd both take it as a chance for a roll in the
hay, but I didn't tell you to do that."

Shukumaru scratched his head. "I don't get it."

"I know," Suzu sighed. "I'm not sure I get it either.
But you can't have her." She walked closer.

"But she's my wife!"

Suzu shook her head. She appeared to be concentrating.
"No. She was your wife," she said slowly. "I hope I pray
that she will be your wife. But she is not your wife now.
Right now, I am your wife. I bore your children. I keep
your house. I've been with you for over seven years. I
won't be cast aside for a younger woman." Her mouth
quirked. "Even if she is me."

"Who said anything about casting aside?" Shukumaru
asked, trying to sound reasonable. "You can both" He
stopped. Suzuko and Suzu had both shaken their heads at the
same moment. Suzu smiled, and Suzuko noticed how naturally
her face fell into that expression. Suzu watched Suzuko
expectantly.

"He's my husband," Suzuko said faintly.

Suzu looked relieved. "No," she said again. "He was
your husband. He will be your husband. But now, he's my
husband. I'm sorry, but I won't share him with you any more
than you will share him with me." Her lips moved
soundlessly for a moment. "I can't," she added. Again, she
waited tensely.

"Why not?!" Suzuko burst out.

Suzu let out a deep sigh and relaxed, rubbing her head
with one hand. "We need to talk about that. Shukumaru,
please go home now. I need to talk to her... to me. In
private."

"Shukumaru, please stay," Suzuko said quickly.

Shukumaru looked from one wife to the other. His face
hardened. He bent suddenly, picked up his spear, and
departed in swift, angry strides.

"I have no idea how I'm going to handle THAT," Suzu
remarked when he was gone.

Suzuko stared at her. "What's going on here? Why
can't I just stay?"

"Think about it," Suzu said carefully. "You've been
through time often enough, you ought to be able to
understand. I did, when I was here. You will, right
about... now."

"Why shouldn't I be afraid of you?!" Suzu burst out.
"You know how much I love Shu! You can imagine how much I
love my children! I have a wonderful life, and you can
destroy it all by not doing a thing, and I would never even
know! If you don't go back in time seven years, just like I
did, it all would just be... gone! Ffft!"

Suzuko staggered back, appalled. "But... the fire...."

Suzu regarded her levelly. "I remember me doing this."
She sank to her knees, bowed, and touched her head to the
ground before Suzuko. "Please. Please. For my children.
For my husband. For my life. For your life. Please. I
beg of you. Do what I did, and become me."

Suzu raised her head. "That's one theory. Another is
that if anything doesn't happen right, everything that
depends on it happening that way vanishes. Ffft. Things
happened differently. Will happen differently. Something
like that. I don't know which is right, and it scares me to
death."

Suzu sighed and nodded. "No more, no less. I'm also trying
to make things happen the way I remember them happening, like
sending Shu to take you for this 'walk'. It's giving me a
headache like you wouldn't believe, and there's no aspirin for
two hundred years in any direction. Willow bark just doesn't
cut it."

Suzuko laughed suddenly, then sobered. "Do you
remember you telling me that?" Suzu met her eyes and nodded
slowly. Suzuko suddenly understood the depth of the older
woman's mortal terror of making a tiny mistake that would
snuff out her family... and she weighed it against her own
terror of the fire.

"All right," Suzuko said, trembling. "I'll do it."

Suzu gave a little sigh and fainted, collapsing
sideways from her kneeling position to lie sprawled on the
ground by the waterfall.

~~~~~

Suzuko sat on the woodpile again an hour later,
carefully not listening to the voices inside the house as
Suzu tried to explain to a very upset Shukumaru what had
happened, and what was happening, and what was going to
happen. Suzuko didn't envy her older self that task at all.
The shouting had subsided, though, so Suzu must have done
well enough; she hoped she'd do as well when the time came
for her to do it. She smiled a little, closed her eyes, and
tried to stop thinking, or wanting, or worrying, and just
be, like a plant in the sunshine.

The door opened and closed. Suzuko felt the woodpile
shift a little as someone sat down on it.

"Hey, Suzuko."

Suzuko opened her eyes and smiled at Shukumaru. "Shu."

He clenched his hands together selfconsciously and
looked at them. "I'm sorry about... you know."

No, I don't know. Sorry we almost made love? Sorry we
didn't? Sorry you chose her instead of me, when we asked
you to do different things? "That's all right. She's
right, you know. You're her husband, not mine, not really."

Shukumaru lifted his head and smiled at her, and for a
moment she could almost believe he was her Shu... but not
quite. "Yeah, I guess I am. She says you're leaving soon."

"I suppose so," Suzuko said, looking at the house
across the street. "I want to get back to my Shukumaru. He
probably misses me. I sure miss him." A sudden thought
struck her, and she glanced back at him. "Shu... do you
remember how it was, after you fell back into this time,
seven years ago? When I wasn't there?"

"It was pretty bad," Shukumaru said slowly. "You were
lost, and I couldn't even go looking for you in the fire the
way you could go looking for me. All I could do was wait.
So I waited."

Suzuko swallowed a lump in her throat. "For seven
months... was it hard?"

He shrugged. "Not knowin' was hard. I figured the
same thing had happened again, like you told me once, and I
was thrown farther back than you were." He smiled suddenly.
"I was afraid it was gonna be ten years again."

Suzuko looked at her feet. "Did you ever feel like
giving up and marrying someone else?"

"No. Never. Suzuko...." His hand rested on her knee,
strong and gentle. "You know you're the only girl for me."
He removed his hand suddenly. "Er... I mean, she's the
only... oh, hell."

Suzuko laughed and reached over to pat him on his knee.
"It's all right, Shu. I understand, really."

"Well, I don't," Shukumaru muttered, rising, "but if
you say so, I believe you." He picked up a hoe leaning
against the house. "I don't suppose the millet's gonna weed
itself. See you at supper, Suzuko." He strode off,
whistling, and Suzuko settled back in the sunshine to think
about time and fire.

Her first trip had been from very near this spot, about
eight years ago as the villagers counted time, when she was
perhaps four years old. A burning house had collapsed on
her and she'd fled... to 1970. Why? As good a time as any,
to a little kid about to be burned to death.

Her second trip had been from 1983 to just before the
beginning of her first trip; a gas-storage complex had
exploded, sending her to a 16th-century battlefield. Why?
Maybe I was going... home. I came pretty close; I only
missed by about a week early. Shukumaru landed ten years
earlier and grew up in the interval.

Her third trip had been to escape a burning beam that
was being wielded as a club to smash Shukumaru. She'd
thrown herself on top of him before it hit, and they'd ended
up back in 1983. Why? Maybe I was going home again, sort
of, to just before the crazy adventure started. If so, we
arrived only a few hours early.

Fourth trip, through the same gas explosion for the
second time. I saw myself, with Shuhei before he became
Shukumaru. Shukumaru and I landed in the battlefield a
couple of weeks after I landed there alone on the second
trip. Why? I guess I just missed. Not by much. I knew
when that fire would take me... I knew.

Fifth trip, from the forest fire, and boy, did I miss.
I was aiming for 1983, and hit 1944. Why? Suddenly
Suzuko's eyes snapped open as she remembered. I was
thinking about NOT going to 1983! That must have thrown us
off!

She forced herself to focus. Sixth trip: the
firebombing. I had to have been trying to go home. I fell
short, and Shu landed when I wanted to be, more or less.
Why? Maybe I was too scared, or too surprised. But the
size of the fire doesn't seem to make any difference, and I
do have a lot of control over when I end up....

Suzuko patted the firewood she was sitting on. "We're
going to take a little trip, you and I," she whispered to
it. Suddenly she wasn't afraid any more.

~~~~~

"We're ready to light the fire!" Shukumaru called,
sticking his head in the front door of the house.

"Go ahead! We'll be there in a few minutes!" Suzu
called back. She turned back to Suzuko as Shukumaru's head
withdrew and the door closed. "Time to get dressed. Here,
I want to show you something." She opened a flat box,
pulled out a neatly folded kimono, shook it out, and held it
up. It was exactly like the cheap cotton kimono Suzuko had
pulled on the night of the firebombing, and it still bore
faded dirt stains; its unnaturally precise thread and
weaving declared it an anachronism in this time of home-spun.
"I saved it." She picked up another folded kimono and
shook it out. "And here's yours. I washed it as best I
could, but I couldn't get it quite clean."

Suzuko looked at the two kimonos that were the same
kimono, and then looked at the 25-year-old woman who was
herself. "Suppose I put on the other one instead of the one
I arrived in, and then go through the fire?"

Suzu thought about it for only a moment before paling.
"Then it would come from nowhere, and there'd be two...."
She trailed off, looking terrified. "Or none! No! That
mustn't happen!"

"Don't worry," Suzuko said soothingly. "I'll wear this
one, and everything will be all right." She undid her
kimono, let it fall, and put on the newer of the two matched
kimonos.

"Are you sure that's the right one?" Suzu's voice
still held a note of fear.

"Yes. See, this one's less faded. And this is my
bell, and THAT one's yours." She slipped the cord over her
wrist and shook it to hear the jingle.

Suzu examined the kimonos and the bells carefully and
calmed. "I'm sorry. It's just...." She removed her kimono
and put the old one on, then put her bell on her wrist.
They inspected each other, as nearly identical as seven
years' difference in age would allow, nodded simultanously,
and giggled together.

~~~~~

The whole village had turned out to see Suzuko off.
Most of the families had contributed wood to the bonfire
that burned atop the rise outside the village. None of them
save Suzu and Suzuko really understood why she was leaving,
or what the fire was for, but they all stood around the
bonfire watching as Suzuko made her farewells.

"This just isn't right," the headman grumbled. Suzuko
and Suzu looked at each other and sighed.

"Well, if you talked Shukumaru into this, I don't
suppose I have much of a chance," the old man sighed. He
looked at Suzuko. "Good luck."

"Thanks, Father," Suzuko said. She ruffled Shuhei's
hair. "Be good. I'll see you again soon." In about a
year, and you'll be a lot smaller....

Suzuko stepped up to Shukumaru. "One for the road?"

Shukumaru tried to smile. "Yeah." He hugged her
tightly. "Come back to me," he whispered in her ear.

Suzuko smiled through her tears. "Silly Shu. We
explained that. I'm already back. I came back years ago."
She tilted her head to Suzu. "If you want to make me happy,
take care of her." She could see that Shukumaru still
didn't quite understand, but he nodded anyway and let her go
reluctantly.

Last she embraced Suzu. "I can't thank you enough,"
Suzu whispered.

"If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be too scared to
go," Suzuko whispered back. "I want to be you. I want your
husband and your children, and if this how I get all that,
then this is what I want to do."

"Well, I'm sure not letting you have them any other
way," Suzu whispered, smiling.

Suzuko laughed and stepped back, wiping her eyes. Suzu
went to Shukumaru and held him tightly, and he put one arm
around her, but both continued to watch Suzuko.

Suzuko turned to face the fire. It was a fine fire,
crackling and roaring, shooting flames up ten and fifteen
feet into the air. She thought of the summer after the
forest fire, and fixed in her mind the image of Shukumaru:
not Suzu's Shukumaru, but hers, the same age as she was,
brash and impulsive. She ruthlessly suppressed the desire
to aim for the time right after he'd returned, and spare him
the awful waiting; who knew what would happen if she did
that? THIS was the future she wanted, and its past was the
past she'd try to reach.

Shukumaru shone in her mind as she took a breath, held
it, and ran headlong into the fire. The sound of her bell
hung in the air for a moment after the flames took her.

The villagers gasped and murmured. "She... vanished,"
the headman said unbelievingly. "Like she never was."

"Don't say that," Suzu said firmly. "She was, just
exactly as much as I am." She relaxed her grip on Shukumaru
a little, reassured by the fact that Suzuko had gone and she
and her family still existed. She looked up at Shukumaru.
"She must have made it," she said softly. "She must be me
now. It all happened just the way I remember it."

Shukumaru nodded, but his gaze was still fixed on the
fire and his jaw was set. "I still feel like she's lost
again."

"Well, maybe it'll help if I tell you what happened to
me after I went through this same fire...."

~~~~~

Suzuko skidded to a stop by the dirt road on the rise
outside the village. Hey, I didn't even black out that
time! She turned and saw the thatched roofs of the village,
peaceful and familiar in the afternoon sun. People moved to
and fro. None of them looked like Shukumaru. She started
down the road.

A bent man wheeling a cart loaded with sacks looked
curiously at her as she paused to examine the sapling by the
gate. "Suzuko? Suzuko! You're back!"

"Uh, sure..." Takezo watched her slip through the gate
and run away down the dirt street, moving only his head to
do so. A sack fell off his cart and landed on his foot.
"Ow!"

Suzuko ran up to her house, opened the door, and
hurried inside, leaving the door open. "Shukumaru!" Only
silence greeted her. She looked around at the piles of long-
unwashed clothing and the unswept floor, and her nose
wrinkled. "Good heavens, Shu," she said to the room, "I can
definitely tell you haven't had another woman in here. What
a mess." She considered going looking for him, but decided
it would be better to wait where she was. Humming a tune
that wouldn't be composed for over three hundred years, she
began to tidy up.

"Suzuko?"

Suzuko turned and looked at the stout man in the
doorway with other villagers crowding in behind him and
jumping up to peer over his shoulders. "Oh, hello, Father,"
she said cheerfully, putting down a quilt long overdue for
airing. "Where's Shukumaru?"

"You've been gone for a year, and all you have to say
is 'hello, Father'? Where've you been, girl?"

"Out looking for you," the headman snorted, sitting on
the edge of the raised floor. "The stupid kid was sure
you'd come back, but he said he couldn't stand to sit around
waiting, so he's been wandering around every minute he
wasn't working or sleeping."

"That idiot," Suzuko said fondly. "If he hadn't been
out searching for me, he'd have been home when I got here."

"That's what I told him... well, the 'idiot' part,
anyway." The headman got up with a grunt and turned to go.
"Welcome back, daughter. Shukumaru should be back around
sunset. Get out of the way, you fools," he said irritably,
stomping through the crowd outside the door.

~~~~~

Shukumaru trudged wearily homeward with his arms draped
over the spear across his shoulders, looking down at the
shadow stretched out in front of him. He was almost home;
he could faintly hear the sounds of the village over the
next rise. It just wasn't the same, though, coming home to
the empty house that he'd built for Suzuko and himself.
Perhaps that was why he spent as little time as he could
there.

For some reason he would never know, he lifted his head
and looked up the road, and he noticed the slim woman
standing atop the rise, her kimono glowing in the rays of
the setting sun. She waved at him, and her voice sounded
faintly over the sudden pounding of his heart.

"Shukumaruuuu!"

He swung the spear off his shoulders and sprinted up
the hill to meet her, weariness forgotten. She held out her
arms as he ran the last few steps, and he dropped the spear,
swept her up into his embrace, and spun around, laughing.
"It's really you!" he exulted. "I thought I'd have to wait
another ten years for you to come back!"

"You just wanted to be twenty-eight and have an
eighteen-year-old wife," Suzuko said accusingly, but she was
smiling as she said it, knowing in the surest possible way
that it wasn't true.

"Aw, Suzu.... Man, it's good to see you again! So
what happened?" he asked, putting her down and bending to
pick up his discarded spear.

"I'll tell you later. We have lots of time for
stories," she said, linking her arm though his as they
started down the rise. Lamps were coming on in the village
as the dusk gathered. "That's all in the past now, though.
I'd rather think about the future."

"Whatever you say. I'm really glad you're back, Suzu."

"I know. I saw the house."

"Uh... well...."

"It's all right, Shu. I'm glad to be back. From now
on, things will be wonderful. I have my word for it."